The heart of a computer is a magnetic hard disk drive (HDD) which typically includes a rotating magnetic disk, a slider that has read and write heads, a suspension arm above the rotating disk and an actuator arm that swings the suspension arm to place the read and/or write heads over selected circular tracks on the rotating disk. The suspension arm biases the slider into contact with the surface of the disk when the disk is not rotating but, when the disk rotates, air is swirled by the rotating disk adjacent an air bearing surface (ABS) of the slider causing the slider to ride on an air bearing a slight distance from the surface of the rotating disk. When the slider rides on the air bearing the write and read heads are employed for writing magnetic impressions to and reading magnetic signal fields from the rotating disk. The read and write heads are connected to processing circuitry that operates according to a computer program to implement the writing and reading functions.
Anisotropy field (Hk) is a fundamental magnetic parameter of ferromagnetic materials. Moreover, optimizing the Hk value of various layers of read and/or write portions of magnetic heads is an important factor in improving performance thereof. In conventional products, the Hk values of the different layers thereof are changed by altering the magnetic materials of the layers themselves. However, by altering the magnetic materials of the layers, other properties of the layers are negatively affected.
It is therefore highly desirable to develop a method to control the Hk value of various layers of magnetic heads, independent of their composition. This is particularly true for free layers of a sensor, which are much thinner than most magnetic layers in an exemplary magnetic head. Thus, in sharp contrast to conventional products, various embodiments described herein preferably incorporate static oblique angle deposition, thereby improving the tunability of the anisotropy for magnetic layers, preferably resulting in improved magnetic stabilization for magnetic layers according to various embodiments.